Planting date and nutrients level affecting flowering, yield and quality of gynoecious cucumber under nethouse condition

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of different date of plantings viz., 15th August, 1st September and 15th September and nutrients level viz., 15:7:16, 20:12:21, 25:17:26 and 30:22:31 kg NPK ha-1 in factorial randomized block design with three replications under nethouse. Among date of planting, 15th September exhibited significantly early female flowering (20.75 days) on lower node of 1.55, and it also reported highest for fruit length (13.32 cm), fruit diameter (3.25 cm), fruit weight (124.28 g), fruits per plant (15.12), yield per plant (1888.8 g), yield per 1000m2 (125.93 q), nitrogen (50.08 mg/100g), phosphorus (22.50 mg/100g), potassium (138.75 mg/100g), calcium (8.53 mg/100g), iron (0.19 mg/100g), zinc (0.19 mg/100g) and manganese ( 0.12 mg/100g) content of the fruit. Similarly, fruit length (13.51 cm), fruits per plant (15.13), fruit weight (129.28 g), fruits per plant (15.13), yield per plant (1960.6 g), yield per 1000m2 (130.71 q), nitrogen (54.67 mg/100g), phosphorus (24.89 mg/100g), potassium (144.89 mg/100g), calcium (10.58 mg/100g), iron (0.21 mg/ 100g), zinc (0.20 mg/100g) and manganese (0.13 mg/100g) were recorded highest by application of 30:22:31 kg NPK ha-1. Among treatment combinations, 15th September planting with 30:22:31 kg NPKha-1 of fertilizer application resulted in better performance for all yield and quality parameters and observed as the most promising treatment for cucumber production under nethouse condition.